Popularity evolution of programming languages since 2004

Hrishikesh Pardeshi

Co-founder, Product & Dev at Flexiple ($700,000 revenue) & Remote Tools.

Last updated on19 Feb 2024

Since the year 2004, programming languages used by engineers across the globe and their popularity has changed significantly.

Here’s a short motion graphic that shows how some programming languages endured a steep fall from grace, while others shot up in popularity and usage in the past two decades.

Watch till the end to witness some significant change in rankings!

Key Takeaways

• Java and Python emerge as the two most popular programming languages given their widespread application

• Python has gained immense popularity in the recent 4-5 years

• PHP, on the other hand, has lost its charm during the same period

• Javascript, not surprisingly, has taken over PHP in the last couple of years

• Go, Scala and Ruby continue to have niche adoption